How to set up Octopus Go (or other dual rate tariff) in Energy Dashboard

Sorry I don’t understand. Please can you explain what your inverters have to do with grid import?
They might measure it as part of your solar or storage system but there’s only one wire with power coming in (3 phase excepted). Why wouldn’t you just use one sensor/meter?

Good luck

Thanks, got you.
Will use the CT sensor to evaluate the peak & off peak. Was confusing my self with the 2 sets of data I get from the dual inverters. Your ofcourse correct, the CT measures everything out & in

Hi Steve_jo, I’m having the same issue as others. The clock symbol (selector) doesn’t generate when using Utility Meter

Sorry I’m not an expert. What helpers does the utility meter integration set up for you?

This thread is a bit old, but in case it helps I can add a bit more detail as I went through this yesterday. I will also show the traps I fell in
The 3 helpers created are these


The top one has a drop down to flip between peak and off peak
image

It is then necessary to set up an automation to flip between the two (or more) rate settings. I have a switch for peak / off peak already so I just used that as the trigger. It didn’t work at first and I found these two issues, because I copied someone else’s script

  1. Peak is not the same as peak, check your case is correct.
  2. I made errors on the entity name, based on my screenshot above I needed select.electricity_meter
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Is there a timing issue around when the helper sensors become valid as grid consumption sensors?

I’ve set everything up a couple of days ago, the helpers are counting peak and off peak usage in kWh, but the energy dashboard is not letting me add them to the Grid Consumption area.

Does that mean the utility meters don’t appear in the drop down in settings - dashboards- energy - add consumption? I’ve only had problems if the sensors weren’t actually counting.

Have you tried a restart (sorry know it’s a cliche)? Do you see any sensors offered in the drop down?

Good luck

It must be a timing thing. Took a couple of days. They were counting but they didn’t appear in the drop down for 2 days after creation.

All good and working now, thanks.

Does this work in the same way for triple tariffs?

I’ve just switch to Octopus Flux, which has 3 import and 3 export tariffs.

I’ve created all the necessary utility meter helpers, it’s the switching automation I’m not sure about. Does the

option: "{{ tariff }}"

Cycle through the utility meter rates at the trigger time?

I’ve set it up like that so we’ll see what happens.

Should do (but I’ve not tried it).

Add a third time change in the Yaml matching the rate name in your utility meter and all should be well.

Let us know how it goes. Thanks

@P6Dave I’d be interested to know if you got this working and if so how you set it up. I’ve just switched today to Flux.

I did get it working, but it took a bit more work.

I created the usual helpers, one for import rates and one for export rates, with the tariffs I’m on. They look like this:

Then the following automation switches between them at the right times:

alias: "Octopus Flux Rates Switch for Utility Meter "
description: ""
trigger:
  - platform: time
    at: "02:00:00"
    variables:
      tariff: Off Peak
    id: Cheap Rate
  - platform: time
    at: "05:00:00"
    id: Standard Rate
  - platform: time
    at: "16:00:00"
    variables:
      tariff: Peak
    id: Peak Rate
  - platform: time
    at: "19:00:00"
    variables:
      tariff: Peak
    id: Standard Rate Again
condition: []
action:
  - choose:
      - conditions:
          - condition: trigger
            id: Cheap Rate
        sequence:
          - service: select.select_option
            data:
              option: Flux Cheap Import
            target:
              entity_id: select.octopus_flux_import_rate
          - service: select.select_option
            data:
              option: Flux Cheap Export Rate
            target:
              entity_id: select.octopus_flux_export_rates
      - conditions:
          - condition: trigger
            id: Standard Rate
        sequence:
          - service: select.select_option
            data:
              option: Flux Standard Import
            target:
              entity_id: select.octopus_flux_import_rate
          - service: select.select_option
            data:
              option: Flux Standard Export Rate
            target:
              entity_id: select.octopus_flux_export_rates
      - conditions:
          - condition: trigger
            id: Peak Rate
        sequence:
          - service: select.select_option
            data:
              option: Flux Peak Import
            target:
              entity_id: select.octopus_flux_import_rate
          - service: select.select_option
            data:
              option: Flux Peak Export Rate
            target:
              entity_id: select.octopus_flux_export_rates
      - conditions:
          - condition: trigger
            id: Standard Rate Again
        sequence:
          - service: select.select_option
            data:
              option: Flux Standard Import
            target:
              entity_id: select.octopus_flux_import_rate
          - service: select.select_option
            data:
              option: Flux Standard Export Rate
            target:
              entity_id: select.octopus_flux_export_rates
mode: single

I couldn’t get the option: "{{ tariff }}" to work with three rates.

I’ve also got a bunch of utility meter helpers counting up daily, weekly, monthly, yearly totals for each rate

Congrats on getting it going - all that YAML must have taken some persistence.

I really don’t know why the tariff variable approach didn’t work. Hate not knowing so I’ve created a test utility meter with three rates and this automation to control the selector

alias: Peak/Cheap rate select for three rate Utility meter
description: ""
trigger:
  - platform: time
    at: "02:00:00"
    variables:
      tariff: Cheap
  - platform: time
    at: "05:00:00"
    variables:
      tariff: Standard
  - platform: time
    at: "16:00:00"
    variables:
      tariff: Peak
  - platform: time
    at: "19:00:00"
    variables:
      tariff: Standard
action:
  - service: select.select_option
    target:
      entity_id: select.test_utility_meter
    data:
      option: "{{ tariff }}"
mode: single

Will leave it running for 24 hours and see how it goes

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The energy dashboard will do that for you. Is there a reason for doing it manually?

To be honest, I very seldom look at the energy dashboard. I have a card on my own energy dashboard that shows cumulative data, so created all the helpers to populate that.

The {{tariff}} automation works fine

Flex is a three rate four period tariff so had to add two new time triggers to the original Go automation and make sure the variables were set to the correct rates defined in the utility meter. The set.select_option is case sensitive so the rates in the automation YAML have to match the rates that were defined in the utility meter setup exactly.

On to whatever Octopus dream up next :blush:

1 Like

Last point. You don’t have to use just one (complicated/YAML) automation to set the rate selector.

Everything can be done in the UI - set up one automation per rate:

Trigger on the start time for the rate.
Set the action to ‘Call Service’ and choose ‘select: select_option’
Choose the correct utility meter helper
Type the rate you want selected into the option box - case sensitive
Save and name

Repeat for the different rate periods. This approach is simple but not quite so easy to maintain as the times are in three different automations.

For Octopus Flex can set two time triggers in the automation selecting the standard rate so only need three automations.

If you need to set import and export helpers and the time periods for both are the same then can select both of the helpers to be updated in the same automation - just add a second entity - (+Choose entity) in the Targets section of the UI.

2 Likes

Did this work? I can’t get it to work - it doesn’t seem to shift the tariff

This works How to set up Octopus Go (or other dual rate tariff) in Energy Dashboard - #21 by steve_jo

Or just forget YAML and do it in the ui How to set up Octopus Go (or other dual rate tariff) in Energy Dashboard - #25 by steve_jo

To actually change the tariff you need to use the select.select_option service

Good luck

I have set up my meter helpers as shown above and created the automation to change from peak to offpeak to peak etc. The meter switches correctly. However the data useage is recording in both peak and offpeak.

Any ideas what is going wrong?